Monday, October 8, 2012

Patents in Relation to Intellectual Property Rights

The debate surrounding intellectual property, and its rights, is a
fascinating one. It was not until the late 18th century that the term
"intellectual property" even began to be used, and it was late in the
20th century before the term became common place. Now, just a few logistical
points, intellectual property is subdivided into two categories: Industrial
property and Copyright. According to the World Intellectual Property
Organization, Industrial property includes, but is not limited to patents,
trademarks, and industrial designs. Whereas, Copyright generally refers to
literary and artistic works such as plays, novels, and musical works. While all
these definitions are beneficial to some extent, the question of whether or not
they are relevant and important, needs to be asked. And, in short, my answer
would be, yes.

As
I see it, the biggest issue people have with the protection of intellectual
property (IP) rights, is that IP is intangible. But, the key phrase in IP rights
is the word “rights” itself. Just like the inalienable rights that are
protected within the Bill of Rights, IP should be protected in a similar way.
Of course the Bill of Rights is much more important than simply just IP, but I
fear that if IP does not continue to be protected, entrepreneurs will lose
interest in our country.

Ideas
are some of the most important things a society contains. In fact, Entrepreneurship
is one of the key factors of production in any society. And, what makes
entrepreneur’s so incredible is that they take some abstract idea floating
around in their head, and bring it to fruition. Now, one of the key steps in
that process is being granted a patent or copyright for whatever item, system,
or process they have created. Patents are a form of protection that is provided
to innovators of all types. Basically, patents allow any inventor to seek legal
recourse against someone who wishes to steal their idea. This provides an
excellent incentive for those who are willing to take a risk on an idea.
Without patents, our country wouldn’t be where it is today. However, that being
said, I do feel that the current patent system should be revamped.

In
modern society, patents are overused and abused. In 2010, over 500,000 patents
were filed. It is estimated however, that over ten percent of all patents
issued are completely worthless from the time they are issued. That means
either the invention they protect doesn’t function as stated, or a similar
invention already exists, but was not found. In fact, only about two percent of
all patents issued bring any sort of monetary returns to the recipient. Several
large corporations have earned the nickname “patent troll,” in that they seek
only to hoard patents and use them to gain money through the legal system. So,
bearing that in mind, it is obvious that something needs to be done with the
patent system.

While
it may seem that patents are as useless as what they protect (IP), this is not
the case. For those individuals who actually are innovating, and need
protection, patents are great. I however believe that patents should be more
costly to obtain. This would weed out a lot of individuals who don’t have good
ideas. And the rest would need to search for investors to provide financial
stability. Chances are if a group of investors is willing to back your idea,
then it is legitimate, and worthy of a patent. All these efforts would reduce
the backlog in the patent office, and bring important technologies to the
market faster. Also, by not removing the patent system completely, a large
portion of potential entrepreneurs would not be alienated.

IP
rights can be justified simply on the basis of economic sensibility. Without
them, our economy would look much different than it currently does.